The Internet of Things may implement interconnection between a person and a thing or between one thing and another. Possible application includes various aspects such as smart grid, intelligent agriculture, intelligent transportation, and environment detection. A wearable device (WD) application is a type of important application of the Internet of Things, that is, a portable device that is directly worn on a body or integrated to a piece of clothing or an accessory of a user. A wearable device is a hardware device, and also implements powerful functions through software support, data exchange, and cloud-based interaction.
In the prior art, different bearers are established to distinguish between different data directions. For example, a bearer herein may be understood as a data bearer (DRB). For example, there are three bearers DRBs between a wearable device and a terminal device: a DRB1, a DRB2, and a DRB3. The DRB1 is used to transmit data between the wearable device and relay UE. The DRB2 is used to transmit data between the wearable device and a network. In this case, a corresponding bearer DRB-a is required between the terminal device and a base station, to complete data transmission between the wearable device and the base station together with the DRB2. In this case, for uplink data (sent by the wearable device), a destination address of the data on the DRB2 indicates only the base station. In other words, for downlink data (sent by the network), a destination address of the data on the DRB-a indicates only the wearable device. The DRB3 is used to transmit data to both the terminal device and the base station. Similarly, in this case, a corresponding bearer DRB-b is required between the terminal device and the base station, to complete data transmission between the wearable device and the base station together with the DRB3. A difference lies in that: For uplink data, a destination address of the data on the DRB3 indicates both the terminal device and the base station. In other words, for downlink data, a destination address of the data on the DRB-b indicates both the terminal device and the wearable device.
As described above, in actual application, bearers need to be established based on different data directions. Therefore, a relatively large quantity of data bearers are established, wasting network resources, and reducing a quantity of wearable devices and terminal devices that can be supported by a network.